Release Week: Nicola Griffith's Hild, Lewis Shiner's Collected Stories, and Simon Vance narrates John Harwood's The Ghost Writer and Clive Barker's collection of First Tales

Posted on 2013-12-18 at 20:40 by Sam

DECEMBER 11-17, 2013: Finally! Amidst one of the quietest weeks yet on the year, Nicola Griffith's Hild is in audio at last, along with a multi-voiced production of Lewis Shiner's magnificent Collected Stories and enough chilling tales to send you even closer to the fire this winter, with Simon Vance reading both John Harwood's The Ghost Writer and Clive Barker's First Tales, and (in the also out listings) a pair of Spokenworld/Ladbroke productions have excellent narrators reading classic tales from Ambrose Bierce, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, and W W Jacobs, AND! a new unabridged production of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Meanwhile, if next week's as quiet as it looks to be, I'll have the time to finally start putting out some end-of-the-year articles and get ready to kick off the "Arrrrrrrdies". (Note, again: there may be fewer Rs.) Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Hild: A Novel by Nicola Griffith, narrated by Pearl Hewitt for Macmillan Audio is finally here, just over a month after the print/ebook release from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Originally slated to be read by Anne Flosnick, the audiobook had to be recast and it's luckily landed on its feet with Hewitt, an experienced narrator (Jaleigh Johnson's Spider and Stone, Catherine Gayle's Lord Rotheby's Influence, Sally MacKenzie's The Naked King) though one whose narrations have tended -- with the obvious exception of Johnson's Forgotten Realms novel --  towards Regency and romance rather than to the Northumbrian seventh century. Curious, I stayed up past midnight Monday night to jump aboard, and am well, well pleased with Hewitt's narration, though far from finished as the audiobook runs well into a 24th hour. It's a book I've been eagerly waiting all year, and recently the (admittedly brief, in the scheme of things) extra anticipation has been a bit hard to bear as reviews and praise have continued to pour forth. LibraryJournal says: “Since Griffith has won the Tiptree, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards, the Premio Italia, and the Lambda Literary Award six times, you’re well advised to grab this fictionalized portrait of a girl name Hild who grew up in seventh-century Britain and became St. Hilda’s of Whitby. Griffith gives us a determined and uncannily perceptive Hild who seems capable of predicting the future (or at least of human behavior), a trait that puts her in the life-and-death position of being made the king’s seer. The writing itself is uncannily perceptive, with none of the flowery excess of some historical fiction writing, though the detailed narrative runs close to 600 pages. I thought of Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall even before I noted the comparison in the promotion.” The author’s blog contains links to download a glossary, maps, and other reference material quite useful to those of us without the print edition on our laps to flip through.

Collected Stories by Lewis Shiner is the “definitive collection” of Shiner’s short fiction in the form of 41 stories, published in an exquisite hardcover edition by Subterranean Press in 2009 and now produced by Skyboat Media for Blackstone Audio, read by Stefan Rudnicki, John Rubinstein, Janis Ian, Scott Brick, Kimberly Farr, Arthur Morey, Roxanne Hernandez Coyne, Rex Linn, David Birney, Kristoffer Tabori, Gabrielle de Cuir, and Karen Joy Fowler reading her own introduction. It's another long audiobook at 20+ hours, but it's one to sample in and out of and return to for your favorites over the coming years. Ah, "The Lizard Men of Los Angeles". Ah, "Perfido". Ah, "White City" and "Till Human Voices Wake Us".

The Ghost Writer by John Harwood, read by Simon Vance for Blackstone Audio (Dec 15) -- Winner of the 2004 International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel, voiced by the superb Simon Vance. "In this tantalizing tale of Victorian ghost stories and family secrets, timid, solitary librarian Gerard Freeman lives for just two things: his elusive pen pal Alice and a story he found hidden in his mother’s drawer years ago. Written by his great-grandmother Viola, it hints at his mother’s role in a sinister crime. As he discovers more of Viola’s chilling tales, he realizes that they might hold the key to finding Alice and unveiling his family’s mystery—or will they bring about his untimely death, as they seem to foretell? Harwood’s astonishing, assured debut shows us just how dangerous family skeletons—and stories—can be." PW's review: "Sly nods to spooky literary spinsters—Henry James's Miss Jessel and Dickens's Miss Havisham—set the tone for this confident debut, a gothic suspense novel with a metatextual spin. ... the novel links textual investigation and sublimated passion, building to a satisfying, unexpected ending."

And speaking of Vance, and chilling tales to curl up through the winter nights by: Clive Barker's First Tales by Clive Barker, narrated by Vance for Crossroad Press; a 2-story, 3-hour audiobook collection. "The book begins with 'The Wood on the Hill', a short story about a bourgeois woman who is soon to learn a terrifying lesson concerning her complete disregard for anyone other than herself. The second tale, 'The Candle in the Cloud', is a novella of dark fantasy that follows three children who discover a magical candle that transports them to a world where a plague-cloud is destroying everything in its wake. These two tales, the first ever written by Clive, are offered here for the very first time. Their production has been lovingly supervised by Clive himself to ensure that these are not mere books, but works of art to be cherished. First Tales is sure to delight everyone from longtime fans to new listeners. In his own words: 'These two stories represent the two essential structures of fantastique literature. "The Wood on the Hill" is about an incursion of unearthly elements into an approximation of our world. "The Candle in the Cloud" is about a journey taken by people from our world into another reality. Yin and Yang, if you like. Forces pulling in opposing directions but to achieve the same end: Revelation.'"

 ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged clive barker, hild, janis ian, john harwood, lewis shiner, nicola griffith, simon vance, stefan rudnicki, the ghost writer

Whispersync Daily Deal: Hillary Jordan's When She Woke and Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior

Posted on 2013-12-14 at 14:46 by Sam

Another day, another glance over the Kindle Daily Deal list for Whispersync deals. Here’s two of interest today:

When She Woke By Hillary Jordan, Narrated By Heather Corrigan for HighBridge. A dystopian novel where the line between church and state has blurred, a “Scarlet Letter” for the 21st century: “Hannah Payne awakens to a nightmare. She is lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home. She is now a convicted criminal, and her skin color has been genetically altered. Her crime, according to the State of Texas: the murder of her unborn child, whose father she refuses to name. Her color: red. The color of newly shed blood.” $1.99 Kindle, $1.99 Audible.

Flight Behavior By Barbara Kingsolver, Narrated By Barbara Kingsolver for Harper Audio. “Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at 17. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed. Flight Behavior takes on one of the most contentious subjects of our time: climate change. With a deft and versatile empathy Kingsolver dissects the motives that drive denial and belief in a precarious world.” $2.99 Kindle, $3.99 Audible.

Posted in Whispersync Deals | Tagged barbara kingsolver, flight behavior, heather corrigan, hillary jordan, when she woke, whispersync

Whispersync Daily Deal: Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music (meanwhile Neil Gaiman's Stardust is still on sale as well)

Posted on 2013-12-13 at 14:53 by Sam

Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, With Occasional Music is a Kindle Daily Deal today at $1.99, and offers a $1.99 Whispersync for Voice upgrade to the Nick Sullivan-narrated audiobook from AudioGO on Audible. “Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf has problems - not the least of which are the rabbit in his waiting room and the trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. Near-future Oakland is an ominous place where evolved animals function as members of society, the police monitor citizens by their karma levels, and mind-numbing drugs such as Forgettol and Acceptol are all the rage. In this brave new world, Metcalf has been shadowing the wife of an affluent doctor, perhaps falling a little in love with her at the same time. But when the doctor turns up dead, our amiable investigator finds himself caught in the crossfire in a futuristic world that is both funny - and not so funny.”

Meanwhile, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust continues to be listed for $1.99 on Kindle as well, with a $3.49 Whispersync for Voice upgrade to the Gaiman-narrated audiobook from Harper Audio on Audible, available in both original and gift editions. “Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful Victoria Forester - even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that stone barrier, Tristran learns, lies Faerie … and the most exhilarating adventure of the young man’s life.”

[Note: I’ve not been covering these kinds of things too much on the blog formally, instead just sharing links on Facebook, Twitter, and reddit, but I’m hoping to get back to doing so centrally from here.]

Posted in Uncategorized, Whispersync Deals | Tagged jonathem lethem, kindle daily deal, neil gaiman, stardust, whispersync for voice

Release Week: Ellen Datlow's Tails of Wonder and Imagination, Scott Sigler's Nocturnal, Faith Hunter's Cat 'O Nine Tales, Dean Koontz's Innocence, How to Train Your Dragon, and more

Posted on 2013-12-11 at 21:56 by Sam

DECEMBER 4-10, 2013: We're well into the quietest weeks of the year in terms of the publishing schedule, but still a few stellar audiobook picks for you this week from anthologies to collections to children's books and a classic short novel as well as the latest from Dean Koontz and Scott Sigler. In 'audiobook news' my eyebrows went up to finally see Nicola Griffith's Hild on pre-order listings, though under narrator Pearl Hewitt instead of the previously-announced Anne Flosnick. It appears I have been invoking the wrong narrator to "read like the wind" for weeks now! Hewitt will be new to me, but I'll follow Griffith's foray into literary historical fiction under whomever's voice. Well, perhaps not Gilbert Gottfried's. Anyway. Speaking of "read like the wind", Pat Rothfuss' Worldbuilders charity has catapulted past its $50,000 stretch goal, a Paul and Storm performance of "Write Like the (Name of the) Wind", a re-casting of their George R.R. Martin song in honor of the wait for Mr. Rothfuss' third Kingkillers novel. It's fun. So enjoy that, and enjoy this week's audio picks. And go check out Worldbuilders!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

As I mentioned in the lead last week, this week would bring (and has brought) a huge, 25.5 hour anthology: Tails of Wonder and Imagination edited by Ellen Datlow, with stories by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Joyce Carol Oates, Susanna Clarke, Lawrence Block, Tanith Lee, Lewis Carroll, Charles de Lint, Jeffrey Ford, Kelly Link, Michael Bishop, Lucius Shepard, Elizabeth Hand, John Kessel, Graham Joyce, John Crowley, Catherynne M. Valente, Carol Emshwiller, Susanna Clarke, Theodora Goss, and yet more, narrated by Teresa DeBerry, Jeremy Arthur, and Cynthia Barrett for Audible Frontiers, first published by Night Shade Books in 2010. "What is it about the cat that captivates the creative imagination? No other creature has inspired so many authors to take pen to page. Mystery, horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories have all been written about cats. From legendary editor Ellen Datlow comes Tails of Wonder and Imagination, showcasing 40 cat tales by some of today's most popular authors. With uncollected stories by Stephen King, Carol Emshwiller, Tanith Lee, Peter S. Beagle, Elizabeth Hand, Dennis Danvers, and Theodora Goss and a previously unpublished story by Susanna Clarke, plus feline-centric fiction by Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, George R. R. Martin, Lucius Shepard, Joyce Carol Oates, Graham Joyce, Catherynne M. Valente, Michael Marshall Smith, and many others. Tails of Wonder and Imagination features more than 200,000 words of stories in which cats are heroes and stories in which they're villains; tales of domestic cats, tigers, lions, mythical part-cat beings, people transformed into cats, cats transformed into people. And yes, even a few cute cats."

Nocturnal: A Novel by Scott Sigler, narrated by Phil Gigante is one of the more ambitious self-published audiobooks yet. Sigler, no stranger whatsoever to self-publishing, has tapped one of the industry's best -- Gigante has read thrillers by Blake Crouch, Jack Kilborn, and Daniel Silva, and fantasies by Terry Brooks, Drew Karpyshyn, Kevin J. Anderson, and (a very enjoyable listen) Saladin Ahmed, and is the award-winning voice of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series -- to narrate for his own Empty Set Entertainment. Sigler originally podcast the novel in 2007, and it was picked up by Crown (Random House) for a print edition last year. "Homicide detective Bryan Clauser is losing his mind. How else to explain the dreams he keeps having - dreams that mirror, with impossible accuracy, the gruesome serial murders taking place all over San Francisco? How else to explain the feelings these dreams provoke in him - not disgust, not horror, but excitement?As Bryan and his longtime partner, Lawrence 'Pookie' Chang, investigate the murders, they learn that things are even stranger than they at first seem."

Cat o' Nine Tales: The Jane Yellowrock Stories by Faith Hunter, Narrated by Khristine Hvam, collect Hunter's short fiction in her Jane Yellowrock series. "For the first time – in one Audible-exclusive collection – it’s 13 stories of Jane Yellowrock, the shape-shifting skinwalker and vampire hunter for hire whose business card reads, “Have Stakes – Will Travel”. Jane carries inside her the soul of her Beast, the mountain lion’s soul which merged with hers when she accidently performed black magic as a child. Now, she and her Beast stalk the dark streets of New Orleans, bringing rogue vampires true death. In Cat o’ Nine Tales, you’ll discover how Jane turned into a big cat for the first time; how she and Molly became friends; how Rick LaFleur got his tattoos. You’ll go along on some of Jane’s early vamp hunts. You’ll even hear two short tales through Bruiser’s eyes." The release is out the same day as a non-fiction guide, The Jane Yellowrock World Companion, and the individual short stories are available standalone as well.

Innocence: A Novel by Dean Koontz, Narrated By MacLeod Andrews (Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim, Brandon Sanderson's Steelheart, Steven Gould's Jumper, John Green and David Levithan's Will Grayson, Will Grayson, E.C. Myers' Fair Coin) for Brilliance Audio is out concurrent with the print/ebook release from Bantam. The infinity-times bestselling Koontz is back with a new standalone novel, perched in between and around more than a few genres. "He lives in solitude beneath the city, an exile from society, which will destroy him if he is ever seen. She dwells in seclusion, a fugitive from enemies who will do her harm if she is ever found. But the bond between them runs deeper than the tragedies that have scarred their lives. Something more than chance—and nothing less than destiny—has brought them together in a world whose hour of reckoning is fast approaching."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged dean koontz, ellen datlow, faith hunter, phil gigante, scott sigler

Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Posted on 2013-12-09 at 06:38 by Dave

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown By Holly Black, Read by Christine Lakin for Hachette Audio Length: 12 hours, 6 minutes

Vampires are all the rage these days. Whether it’s True Blood or The Vampire Diaries or Twilight, vampires are everywhere in pop culture – even Dracula’s back – and it’s easy to see why some people are so bored with them.

I am not one of those people. For me, vampires are the most fascinating monsters. They can be terrifying, seductive, sickening – mirror images of ourselves we try and cover up or pretend aren't there. A lot of times people complain that vampires aren’t scary anymore – they’re all just sexy emo juveniles, even if they've hundreds of years old. I’d like to introduce these people to Holly Black’s The Coldest Girl in Coldtown.

Posted in reviews | Tagged christine lakin, hachette audio, holly black, vampires, YA

Release Week: Dangerous Women, Ian Tregillis' Something More Than Night, Helen Marshall's Hair Side, Flesh Side, and John Gwynne's Malice

Posted on 2013-12-06 at 21:04 by Sam

NOVEMBER 27-DECEMBER 3, 2013: While there's still no sign of Nicola Griffith's Hild -- read like the wind, Ms. Flosnick! -- we still get another fantastic week of audiobooks, including the latest GRRM/Dozois anthology, a Kirkus year's-best-listed new standalone novel from Ian Tregillis, Helen Marshall's creepy ChiZine collection Hair Side, Flesh Side, and the Gemmell-winning epic fantasy Malice by John Gwynne. In the "also out" listings this week, even more epic fantasy than you can shake a stick at, space and military sf, alternate history, and some highly-anticipated literary fiction releases. My "seen but not heard" list this week is led by Daniel Polanski's "She Who Waits" and Ari Marmell's "Lost Covenant", though, primarily, admittedly, I'm still waiting for Hild. Any day now? Meanwhile, there has already been one big mid-week release in the two days that it's taken to get this post together: Tails of Wonder and Imagination edited by Ellen Datlow, with stories by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Joyce Carol Oates, Susanna Clarke, Lawrence Block, Tanith Lee, and more, narrated by Teresa DeBerry, Jeremy Arthur, Cynthia Barrett for Audible Frontiers. Look for more on that subject next week. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Dangerous Women is edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, out in print/ebook from Tor and read by an all-star cast ranging from Jonathan Frakes (Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Stana Katic ("Kate Beckett" on Castle) and Iain Glen ("Jorah Mormont" on Game of Thrones) and Inna Korobkina ("Luda" in Dawn of the Dead, along with roles on 24 and in Transformers: Dark of the Moon) to Janis Ian, Scott Brick, Emily Rankin, among many others as detailed on the Random House product page. The table of contents includes original fiction from Joe Abercrombie, Lev Grossman, Sam Sykes, Nancy Kress, Joe R. Lansdale, Cecelia Holland, and Pat Cadigan, and again too many to list here; an excerpt of Brandon Sanderson’s story is up at Tor.com as part of a series of excerpts from the anthology including Abercrombie, Grossman, Jim Butcher, Carrie Vaughn, Diana Rowland, Diana Gabaldon, and George R.R. Martin, all writing in their bestselling continuities -- and of course, Glen reads a story in GRRM's Game of Thrones. Writes Gardner Dozois in his Introduction, “Here you’ll find no hapless victims who stand by whimpering in dread while the male hero fights the monster or clashes swords with the villain, and if you want to tie these women to the railroad tracks, you’ll find you have a real fight on your hands.  Instead, you will find sword-wielding women warriors, intrepid women fighter pilots and far-ranging spacewomen, deadly female serial killers, formidable female superheroes, sly and seductive femmes fatale, female wizards, hard-living Bad Girls, female bandits and rebels, embattled survivors in Post-Apocalyptic futures, female Private Investigators, stern female hanging judges, haughty queens who rule nations and whose jealousies and ambitions send thousands to grisly deaths, daring dragonriders, and many more.”

Something More Than Night is a new standalone novel by Ian Tregillis out from Tor, and read by Scott Brick for Audible Frontiers. I first picked up on it via the Kirkus Reviews list of 10 best sf/f of 2013: “New, independent fantasy from the author of the fine Milkweed Triptych (Necessary Evil, 2013, etc.)–and it’s a doozy.” And there's an excerpt up at Tor.com. "Ian Tregillis's Something More Than Night is a Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler inspired murder mystery set in Thomas Aquinas’s vision of Heaven. It’s a noir detective story starring fallen angels, the heavenly choir, nightclub stigmatics, a priest with a dirty secret, a femme fatale, and the Voice of God. Somebody has murdered the angel Gabriel. Worse, the Jericho Trumpet has gone missing, putting Heaven on the brink of a truly cosmic crisis. But the twisty plot that unfolds from the murder investigation leads to something much bigger: a con job one billion years in the making. Because this is no mere murder. A small band of angels has decided to break out of heaven, but they need a human patsy to make their plan work. Much of the story is told from the point of view of Bayliss, a cynical fallen angel who has modeled himself on Philip Marlowe. The yarn he spins follows the progression of a Marlowe novel—the mysterious dame who needs his help, getting grilled by the bulls, finding a stiff, getting slipped a mickey. Angels and gunsels, dames with eyes like fire, and a grand maguffin, Something More Than Night is a murder mystery for the cosmos."

Hair Side, Flesh Side is Helen Marshall's 2012 ChiZine-published collection, winner of this year's British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer. Now it's out in audio from the lovely independent audiobook publisher Iambik, narrated by Chiquito Joaquim Crasto. Reviewed highly by Strange Horizons, The National Post, Library Journal, and others. "A child receives the body of Saint Lucia of Syracuse for her seventh birthday. A rebelling angel rewrites the Book of Judgement to protect the woman he loves. A young woman discovers the lost manuscript of Jane Austen written on the inside of her skin. A 747 populated by a dying pantheon makes the extraordinary journey to the beginning of the universe. Lyrical and tender, quirky and cutting, Helen Marshall’s exceptional debut collection weaves the fantastic and the horrific alongside the touchingly human in fifteen modern parables about history, memory, and cost of creating art."

Malice (The Faithful and the Fallen) by John Gwynne is out in audio concurrent with its US release from Orbit, after first being published late last year by Tor UK and being named the winner of the 2013 David Gemmell Legend Awards Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer. Here, narrated by John Keating for Recorded Books: "The Banished Lands has a violent past where armies of men and giants clashed in battle, but now giants are seen, the stones weep blood and giant wyrms are stirring. Those who can still read the signs see a threat far greater than the ancient wars. For if the Black Sun gains ascendancy, mankind's hopes and dreams will fall to dust...and it can never be made whole again. MALICE is a dark epic fantasy tale of blind greed, ambition, and betrayal."

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged carrie vaughn, cecelia holland, dangerous women, diana gabaldon, diana rowland, emily rankin, gardner dozois, george rr martin, helen marshall, iain glen, ian tregillis, inna korobkina, jasin ian, jim butcher, joe abercrombie, joe r lansdale, jonathan frakes, lev grossman, nancy kress, pat cadigan, sam sykes, scott brick, stana katic

Release Week: Sofia Samatar's A Stranger in Olondria, Gene Wolfe's The Land Across, Kate Maruyama's Harrowgate, Dr. Who: Eleven Stories (including Neil Gaiman's Nothing O'Clock), and a big stack of sf by Greg Egan

Posted on 2013-11-27 at 17:40 by Sam

NOVEMBER 20-26, 2013: Not one but (at least) two absolute must-listens this week, along with more new Dr. Who and new-to-audio hard sf than you can shake a stick at -- and more besides. The picks include concurrent new audio for Gene Wolfe's highly-anticipated The Land Across, and another pair of my "most missing audiobooks of 2012" which come off the list as Sofia Samatar's A Stranger in Olondria and Kate Maruyama's Harrowgate were also released this week. In "also out" there's yet more, including Joan Vinge's novelization of 47 Ronin (along with an historical fiction of the same title), book 4 in Steven Erikson's Malazan Books of the Fallen, the Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt anthology Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-mi Hwang (translated from the Korean), book two in Magnus Flyte's City of Dark Magic series, Christopher Healy's The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle read by Bronson Pinchot, and a new GraphicAudio adaptation of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire. Still, a few "seen but not heard" titles keep the overall balance I suppose, including Francis Knight's Last to Rise (which I had really expected to see after books one and two in the series both were concurrent audio releases) and an intriguing title newly in translation from Finnish, The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen, and I'm still quite eagerly waiting for the "any day now" appearance of the Anne Flosnick-narrated Hild by Nicola Griffith. Still, plenty to pick from right here, to be sure. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

A Stranger in Olondria: Being the Complete Memoirs of the Mystic, Jevick of Tyom by Sofia Samatar, narrated by Josh Hurley for Audible, published in print/ebook earlier this year by Small Beer Press. I've read -- and even been lucky enough to publish -- some of Samatar's poetry, and have been anticipating this audio release with bated eardrums for quite some time. Released to some fantastic reviews early on (Library Journal gave it a starred review, and Locus praised its “elegant language” and “revelatory focus”, calling it “the rare first novel with no unnecessary parts … the most impressive and intelligent first novel I expect to see this year, or perhaps for a while longer.”) it has remained a book of interest; Strange Horizons published Newcastle University’s Nic Clarke’s review just last month. While I'm not entirely sold on the narration -- Hurley is new to me and this is his first at-length narration -- the story and language are both marvelous. "When reading and writing are the most important things in the world. Jevick, the pepper merchant's son, has been raised on stories of Olondria, a distant land where books are as common as they are rare in his home - but which his mother calls the Ghost Country. When his father dies and Jevick takes his place on the yearly selling trip to Olondria, Jevick's life is as close to perfect as he can imagine. Just as he revels in Olondria's Rabelaisian Feast of Birds, he is pulled drastically off course and becomes haunted by the ghost of an illiterate young girl. In desperation, Jevick seeks the aid of Olondrian priests and quickly becomes a pawn in the struggle between the empire's two most powerful cults. Even as the country simmers on the cusp of war, he must face his ghost and learn her story before he has any chance of freeing himself by setting her free: an ordeal that challenges his understanding of art and life, home and exile, and the limits of that most seductive of necromancies, reading. A Stranger in Olondria is a rich, immersive fantasy that circles around and away from and back to the transportation of reading and how ideas can be carried far from their origins in something so simple as a book." (Note: a $3.49 Whispersync for Voice upgrade is available on this title.)

The Land Across by Gene Wolfe, read by Jeff Woodman for Audible in a digital-only concurrent release with the print/ebook from Tor -- Brilliance Audio is set to publish in CD media in January. "An American writer of travel guides in need of a new location chooses to travel to a small and obscure Eastern European country. The moment Grafton crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards, and then he is detained for not having it. He is released into the custody of a family, but is again detained. It becomes evident that there are supernatural agencies at work, but they are not in some ways as threatening as the brute forces of bureaucracy and corruption in that country. Is our hero in fact a spy for the CIA? Or is he an innocent citizen caught in a Kafkaesque trap? In The Land Across, Gene Wolfe keeps us guessing until the very end, and after."

Harrowgate by Kate Maruyama, read by Nick Podehl for Brilliance Audio, brings to audio this intriguing and dark September 24 print/ebook release from Amazon.com's 47North. “Michael should be overjoyed by the birth of his son, but his wife, Sarah won’t let him touch the baby or allow anyone to visit. Greta, an intrusive, sinister doula has wormed her way into their lives, driving a wedge between Michael and his family. Every time he leaves the Harrowgate, he returns to find his beloved wife and baby altered. He feels his family slipping away and, as a malevolent force begins to creep in, Michael does what any new father would do–he fights to keep his family together.”

Posted in Release Week | Tagged dr who, gene wolfe, greg egan, harrowgate, neil gaiman, sofia samatar

Sam's Listening Report: February 2013

Posted on 2013-11-21 at 13:00 by Sam

Well... wow. I've really let these reports get way, way out of hand. It's mid-November! Anyway... I'm not really sure how it happened, but though February is the shortest month it was a huge month of listening for me after quite a start to the year in January as well. I also threaded in John Scalzi's episodic The Human Division (which I won't review myself here, since Dave covered these magnificently through his Listen-a-Long). Wonderful books and in a splendid variety, from a crazed serial killer in New York City (Gun Machine by Warren Ellis) to Steampunk/vampire/swashbuckling derring-do (The Rift Walker by Clay and Susan Griffith) to deep future anthropological sf (The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord) to the story of a girl Sold into slavery (Patricia McCormick), to fantastic London-set urban fantasy (Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch), to a roll in the inter-alien-species sheets in J.L. Hilton's Stellarnet Prince, the second in her Stellarnet Series, to... Well. It was a good month.

REVIEWS:

Posted in Sam's Monthly Listening Report | Tagged ben aaronovitch, clay and susan griffith, gun machine, james marsters, jl-hilton, justine eyre, karen lord, kobna holdbrook-smith, leviathan chronicles, midnight rio, mur lafferty, patricia mccormick, reg e cathey, robin miles, sold, stefan kiesbye, stellarnet prince, the best of all possible worlds, vampire epire, warren ellis, your house is on fire your children all gone

Release Week: Tim Powers' Hide Me Among the Graves, Lewis Shiner's Slam, Report from Nuremberg, and Krista D. Ball's Tranquility's Grief

Posted on 2013-11-20 at 19:29 by Sam

NOVEMBER 13-19, 2013: As happened last week, amidst a fairly quiet week overall there's still a pair of fantastic audiobooks from my "most missing in audio" list: Tim Powers' Hide Me Among the Graves and Lewis Shiner's Slam. Additionally, this week brings one of the most fantastically-produced non-fiction titles I've ever had the occasion to come across, an Audible-published Skyboat Media full cast production of Report from Nuremberg, complete with archive audio from the source material. The "also out" listings this week are led by more new releases from fantastic independent audio publisher Iambik, along with C.S. Fuqua's poetry collection White Trash and Southern, Vonda McIntyre's Superluminal, Philippa Ballantine's Kindred and Wings, and new books in the Romulus Buckle, Baskerville Affair, and Jeremiah Hunt series. Coming soon -- later this week in fact -- are a good pile each of Dr. Who audiobooks (including one by Neil Gaiman) and an epic haul of Greg Egan's hard sf. In terms of news, there's been a lot, but the most recent bit is that Buzzy Multimedia has just posted a sample of James Marsters reading The Kingmakers by Clay and Susan Griffith, due out in full in January. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers, read by Fiona Hardingham for Blackstone Audio was published in print/ebook last year by William Morrow, a stand-alone follow-up to the fantastic The Stress of Her Regard which both Dave and I loved. Dave had the decency to actually write it down properly. Perhaps I made up for it by going on to listen to and love Powers' Declare and Last Call and On Stranger Tides... Anyway. The Stress of Her Regard was performed magnificently by Simon Vance, and here the atmosphere of Powers' secret history of mid-19th Century Europe is under the capable voice of Hardingham, whose rendition of Jane Rogers' The Testament of Jesse Lamb was simply wonderful. A 2012 Washington Post Notable Book for Fiction and a 2013 Mythopoeic Award Nominee. "Winter 1862, London. Adelaide McKee, a former prostitute, arrives on the doorstep of veterinarian John Crawford, a man she met once seven years earlier. Their brief meeting produced a child who, until now, had been presumed dead. McKee has learned that the girl lives—but that her life and soul are in mortal peril from a vampiric ghost. But this is no ordinary spirit; the bloodthirsty wraith is none other than John Polidori, the onetime physician to the mad, bad, and dangerous Romantic poet Lord Byron. Both McKee and Crawford have mysterious histories with creatures like Polidori, and their child is a prize the malevolent spirit covets dearly. Polidori is also the late uncle and supernatural muse to poet Christina Rossetti and her brother, painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti."

Slam [print/ebook/CD] by Lewis Shiner, read by Stefan Rudnicki, is Shiner’s 1990 novel of a paroled tax evader, anarchist skateboarders, and, well, 23 cats. (And a UFO hoaxter; an elderly blind/deaf couple seeking centuries-old pirate treasure; an arsonist; and even more cats.) Somehow it was available at Audible in mid-October (and, via a $2.99 Kindle plus $2.99 Whispersync for Voice special, an instant grab once I saw it live there) but I wanted to go ahead and feature it on its official release date this week. As I said during my listening to the audiobook, "I could listen to Stefan Rudnicki read Lewis Shiner all day." Rudnicki was masterful on Glimpses, Shiner's World Fantasy Award winning novel, and here Rudnicki voices one of Shiner's mainstream fictions with the same aplomb. Slam when released in 1990 was on the liminal edge between the Cold War's pessimism and the dawning of the modern Internet. Technological advances seemed to promise post-scarcity just across the horizon. Now looking back, Slam seems almost more a paean to that optimistic hope, that one could plug in to a new network of possibilities and live more or less disconnected from that other grid -- that grid of laws and finance and capital -- in peace and happiness and freedom. As it turned out, deregulated corporate power ended up the victor, buying up land, air, water, laws, politicians, prisons, countries, whatever; opting out wasn't an option. I enjoyed the heck out of this audiobook and am looking forward to next month's audio release of Shiner's Collected Stories.

That Skyboat Media non-fiction title I mentioned in the intro is Report from Nuremberg: The International War Crimes Trial by Harold Burson, narrated by Christian Rummel, Richard McGonagle, Gabrielle De Cuir, Stefan Rudnicki, Kristoffer Tabori, John Rubinstein, Harold Burson, Jim Meskimen, Arthur Morey, Joe Nocera, Robert Forster, and Scott Brick for Audible. From archival audio of reporters' typewriters clanging behind the original radio broadcasts, to Rudnicki's introduction, to the sometimes chilling performances of this full cast, I can't recall a non-fiction title that compares in any way to this. In terms of fiction, World War Z perhaps comes (intentionally? one would have to ask Max Brooks, but I suspect yes) closest, but it's yet another achievement for Skyboat, really. The trial revealed and publicized much of the horrific goings on of the Nazi regime to the world, amidst enduring questions of the legal authority of its court; following down the rabbit hole of stories here, and you learn of ancient prisons converted to housing one or more of the guilty from the trial, and then being destroyed after the death or release of their final prisoner amidst fears of their becoming shrines for a new generation of fascists. That's the thing about history -- you can keep going and going. Here, though, it's a spotlight on -- and is being released on the anniversary of -- the opening of the first and most famous trial, November 19, 1945.

I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for cheering on the underdogs. And it certainly helps when said pint-sized upstart does fantastic work the right way. For Canada-based Iambik Audiobooks, that's releasing exquisite and often edgy, innovative, and diverse fiction from fantastic small press publishers, Mundania Press in the case of my last pick this week, Krista D. Ball's Tranquility’s Grief. Tranquility’s Grief is volume 2 of the Tales of Tranquility, following Book 1: Tranquility’s Blaze. "As the bodies of her father and her sister burned, Bethany refused to say good-bye. She would say it only when she saw the release of their spirits and the burning of every person connected to their deaths. Only then would they rest in peace. Thousands are dead. Lady Champion Bethany’s tainted sister is slain. Her home lost forever. And Magic yet survives. Bethany thought she’d given everything in the fight against Magic. She was wrong. When the deaths of those closest to her shake her already crumbled world, she doesn’t wilt and die. She still has one thing left to gain even now: revenge. Prophecy or no, half-goddess or not, Bethany vows to bring order back to the world with the edge of her blade. No matter who she must defy. No matter what stands in her way. No matter who must die. For what they’ve done to her, all will pay." The narrator here is Cori Samuel, who is a longtime LibriVox contributor and in terms of commercial audiobooks was absolutely fantastic on J.M. McDermott's Last Dragon last year.

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Posted in Release Week | Tagged fiona hardingham, hide me among the graves, iamik audio, lewis shiner, report from nuremberg, stefan rudnicki, tim powers

And the winner is...

Posted on 2013-11-18 at 19:39 by Sam

Thanks everyone for your comments on the “most overlooked” sf/f novel of 2013 as part of this year’s cross-examination of the Publishers Weekly, Amazon.com, and Goodreads Award lists. We ended up with seven valid entries for the free six-month subscription to audiobooks.com, in order:

1. "Damon" for The Daedalus Incident
2. "D. Sharer" for Kill City Blues
3. "Joel" for Wolfhound Century
4. "Arren" for The Rithmatist
5. "David Graybeard" for Great North Road
6. "ficticious1" for The Dream Thieves
7. "Ash" for The Tyrant's Law

So! As promised I headed over to Random.org and entered 1 for the minimum and 7 for the maximum, and it answered: 3. Congrats, “Joel”! I’ll be in touch via email shortly!

Now, I had hoped to announce the next giveaway — an epic-sized epic fantasy giveaway — but I just don’t have the content ready. It’s part of something big, and we want to get it right. It may yet happen later today, or it may be best to hold off until after Thanksgiving. In any case, thanks for participating, and I hope you keep checking back for the release week coverage, Dave’s reviews, more simple contests like this one, and the other bits. Thanks, everybody!

Posted in contests